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I:\2016==GR Sharma Formating Jo Man In India, 96 (9) : 2717-2722 © Serials Publications DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN DIASPORA WRITING IN ENGLISH K. Maragathavel and M. P. Devika Right from its inception Indian writing in English has been a thwarted soul thriving on imitation, translation, borrowing, and compromise and sometimes encounter. The present scenario is not altogether different and Indian Diaspora fiction in English, that forms the major volume of Indian English Writing, is not an exception. While talking of Indian Diaspora Fiction in English, so many questions prop up in our mind, for instance - Does it have its independent identity? Does it possess some unique characteristics that determined its separate status? Does it reflect ‘Indianess’ in the true sense? How do such writers rule over Indian English Writing? So on and so forth. This paper examines the migration of people from India to various countries. It also reveals how exile in the form of migration has been the cause of emergence of a large number of writers who have given direction to the progress of English Literature. A major contribution in this regard has been that of the Indian writers, like Salman Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul, who are accepted as world citizens – a global manifestation of the exilic condition. Indian – English writers like Anitha Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Sunetra Gupta, Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Hari Kunzru have established themselves as fine writers in the tradition of Indian Diasporic writing. Key words: Migration, Diaspora writing and Indian writers Homi Bhaba points out in the ‘Location of Culture’, The study of world literature might be the study of the way in which cultures recognize themselves through their projections of ‘otherness; where, once, the transmission of national traditions was the major theme of a world literature, perhaps we can now suggest that transnational histories of migrants, the colonized, or political refugees – these border and frontier conditions – may be the terrains of world literature. (Bhaba 12) Right from its inception, Indian writing in English has been a thwarted soul thriving on imitation, translation, borrowing, and compromise and sometimes encountering problems in the process. The present scenario is not altogether different and Indian Diaspora fiction in English that forms the major volume of Indian English Writing is not an exception. While talking of Indian Diaspora Fiction in English, so many questions prop up in our mind, for instance, Does it have its independent identity? Does it possess some unique characteristics that determines its separate status? Does it reflect ‘Indianess’ in the true sense? How do such writers rule over Indian English Writing? So on and so forth. Most of the Literature of and on the Indian Diaspora deals with the Indians who emigrated during the colonial period, especially from 1830s to 1930s.The * Asst. Prof of English, SRM University, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram (Dt) Tamil Nadu, India. 2718 MAN IN INDIA British Rule and its impact on the Indian peasantry, the famines and the consequent economic backwardness had resulted in mass unemployment. The institution of slavery was banned by the British in 1830s and this created an acute labour shortage in the sugar plantations of the British and European colonies. This situation gave birth to the movement of the people from one place to another. The period also saw migration of people to West Asia, particularly to the Gulf region and there were the cases of Twice-born Migrants, like the Fiji Indians to Australia, Surinam Indians to Netherlands and the Ugandan Indians to the UK. There also arose the concept of thrice-born migrants too, like the Indians who migrated to Surinam initially, later to the Netherlands after Surinam’s independents in 1975 and finally to the United States. Exile appears both as a liberating as well as a shocking experience. The paradox is apparent because it is just a manifestation of the tension that keeps the strings attached and taut between the writers’ place of origin and their place of exile. Whatever may have been the geographical location of the exiled writer, in the mental landscape the writer is forever enmeshed among the strings attached to holes that pull in opposite directions. The only way the writer can rescue oneself from the tautness of emerging strings is by writing or by other forms of artistic expression. Prominent in exile literature are the works of writers who where made to flee their countries by oppressive regimes. Many writers get out of their native land either because the weather or the society does not suit them or they just get out in their pursuit of the springs of the Hippocrene for their muse. Exile in the form of migration has been the cause of emergence of a large number of writers who have given direction to the progress of English Literature. In fact, it was the colonial powers that made most people aliens in their own country – firstly, through linguistic displacement. It is in this colonial context that the native writers spawned the various sub-genres of English Literature. Writers like R.K.Narayan and Raja Rao who established Indian – English Literature, where all subjects of the British Rule in India. Colonial and Post-Colonial India are divisions that are now more relevant to history than literature because Indian – English literature transcended the barriers of petty classifications and has become whole with its own place in the category of 191 Exile Literatures and the Diasporic Indian writers in mainstream English literature. A major contribution in this regard has been that of the Indian writers, like Salmon Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul, who live as world citizens – a global manifestation of the exilic condition. Indian – English writers such Anitha Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Shashi Tharoor, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Sunetra Gupta, Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Hari Kunzru have all made established themselves as well-known writers while residing abroad. DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN DIASPORA WRITING IN ENGLISH 2719 Even after the colonized countries became independent, writers of many of these countries still faced a state of exile – either because of dictatorship in their countries, or because of racial persecution, or ethnic cleansing, or because they chose to migrate. The Indian-English writers, notably, Raja Rao became an expatriate writer even before the independence of the country; Kamala Markandaya married an English man and lived in Britain (Mehrotra 180, 186, 226). GROWTH OF DIASPORIC NOVELS Though poetry was the most popular genre for lovers of literature, gradually the Novel has come to occupy a dominant place among literary forms. Henry James points out in the Arts of Fiction, “The Art of Fiction is lot reserved for a few initiates The Modern World demands novels, just as it demands films and television programmes” (cited in Iyangar 5) When the novel reached India in the late 18th century, it was a strange event to educated Indians. It did not remain alien for long. During the late 19th century, it was absorbed into the Bengali tradition, which resulted in an output of novels in English. However, only those novels which have an Indian element in some particular and essential fashion can be considered as relevant to this study. Novels in Indian English writing are therefore considered and valued more for their content than their power as fiction. The Indian Diaspora has been formed by a scattering of population created by migrations happening over a period of time unlike the Jewish Diaspora created by an exodus of population at a particular point in time. This sporadic migration traces a steady pattern if a telescopic view is taken over a period of time: from the indentured labourers of the past to the IT technocrats of the present day. Sudesh Mishra in his essay “From Sugar to Masala” divides the Indian Diaspora into two categories – the old and new. It is interesting to note that the history of Diasporic Indian Writing is as old as the diaspora itself. In fact the First Indian Writing in English is credited to Dean Mahomet. who was born in Patna, India, and after working for 15 years in the Bengal Army of the British East India Company, migrated to “eighteen century Ireland and then to England” ( Kumar XX ) in 1784. His book, the Travels of Dean Mohamet was published in 1794. I t predates by about forty years the first English (192 Rupkatha Journal Vol. 1 No. 2) text written by an Indian residing in India, Kylas Chunder Dutt’s “Imaginary History A Journal of Forty – Eight Hours of the year 1945 published in 1835 ( Mehrotra 95 ). The First Indian English novel Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife,was to be published much later in 1864. It is an evident that the contribution of the Indian Diaspora to Indian Writing in English is not a recent fact. The old generation of diasporic Indian writers include Raja Rao, G.V. Desani, Santha Rama 2720 MAN IN INDIA Rao, Balachandra Rajan, Nirad Chaudhuri, and Veel Mehta. They looked back at their homeland and through their writing helped to define India. In the essay, “Diasporas and Multiculturalism” Ramraj illustrates two key types of diasporas. One is traditionalist and the other is assimilationist (Ramraj 217). The former retains its separate identity, while the latter gradually mingles with the mainstream of the host country and, eventually, ceases to regard itself as a diaspora. These two positions are closely related to the host country’s own attitude to the diaspora. Milton Israel, looking at Chirstopher Bagely’s work, outlines the types of responses that mark the receiving society’s response to South Asian immigrants: “1) Ethnocentric and opposed to their culture, values and lifestyle; 2) accommodating and understanding of the context of cultural transfer.” He also notes two corresponding models of the South Asian immigrant response: “the effort to maintain ties with the motherland; and acculturation and adaptation to the host society (Ramraj 10-11).
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